Is it time for Trump's supporters to really "own" him?

Alessandra Kelley · Feb 3, 2017

Twick said:
I think it will take some time, but there's cracks starting to show. ...

5. They will blame it on Obama. For long years people blamed the terrible economy under W. on Clinton.

6. The people who grew up seeing Russia as the enemy (and historically it has never been a friend to the U.S.) didn't blink years ago when conservatives began lauding Putin's Russia as the greatest thing evar. Remember, Putin's values align with the values of those who hate gays and nonwhites, hate human rights, love money, and love authoritarianism.

rugcat · Feb 3, 2017

The view from Germany:

Alessandra Kelley · Feb 3, 2017

Underdawg47 said:
When you run a very unpopular candidate against another very unpopular candidate, you have a huge problem. If Democrats don't wake up and realize the real reasons they lost to Trump...

Your initial premise is incorrect.

Hillary Clinton was popular even in the face of a brutal decades-long smear campaign. She garnered the second highest vote count in US history, after Barack Obama. She won the popular vote. People love her.

I do not think your assessment of the problem is an accurate one.

The reason Hillary Clinton lost to Trump is the Electoral College and roughly 80,000 voters in three swing states.

And I do not think your proposed solutions are helpful.

Continuing to attack Ms. Clinton seems to me a poor strategy for dealing with the current administration. Draining funding from the Democratic Party is also unlikely to improve things.

rugcat · Feb 3, 2017

Alessandra Kelley said:
Your initial premise is incorrect.

Hillary Clinton was popular even in the face of a brutal decades-long smear campaign. She garnered the second highest vote count in US history, after Barack Obama. She won the popular vote. People love her.

I do not think your assessment of the problem is an accurate one.

The reason Hillary Clinton lost to Trump is the Electoral College and roughly 80,000 voters in three swing states.

And I do not think your proposed solutions are helpful.

Continuing to attack Ms. Clinton seems to me a poor strategy for dealing with the current administration. Draining funding from the Democratic Party is also unlikely to improve things.

rugcat said:
The only guilt I am seeing is from some progressives who either voted third-party or didn't vote at all, because they didn't like Hillary Clinton. They didn't believe that Trump could possibly win, so they felt free to voice their displeasure of her. Now that Trump is actually president at least a few of them are realizing what a dreadful mistake they made.

And some of them are still blaming Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. Because the Democrats aren't perfect, and because they had a particular animus toward Hillary Clinton, they allowed a fascist monster to become president of United States, which will result, among other othings in the implementation of every right wing policy, including anti- lgbtq legislation being passed into law.

They take no responsibility; they are secure in their moral righteousness.

ap123 · Feb 3, 2017

I've said this before (I think I've even said it on this thread), Donald Trump won because a lot of people voted for him. No, he didn't win the popular vote (and I think the electoral college is ludicrous), he didn't win by much, and there were, imo, many contributing factors to the Dem's loss, but he won because a lot of people in this country are just fine with what he said he was going to do and what he's doing. Some of his supporters are thrilled with his policies, some are less than thrilled, but they saw what they weren't thrilled with as a fair enough trade-off.

Since his first executive order, I've seen many statements about "this isn't us," and today I saw several comments to the effect of we need to find common ground, come from a place of love, love each other, etc. I'm not about the love for Trump supporters right now, I'll be honest, and highly doubt I will be 6 months or 6 years from now. I don't have the answers to this quagmire we find ourselves in, but it seems to me we're never going to get anywhere if we don't acknowledge that this is, in fact, many of the collective us that makes up the US. Dems didn't "just" lose the Presidency, we lost the House, Senate, and at least one Supreme Court seat, likely more.

Also agreeing with Rugcat, and I think that has much to do with the massive stronghold of the Right these days, more Republicans were willing to vote for and support the candidates who came closest to their ideals, whether or not each individual was their ideal candidate.

Shadow Dragon · Feb 4, 2017

rugcat said:
And some of them are still blaming Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. Because the Democrats aren't perfect, and because they had a particular animus toward Hillary Clinton, they allowed a fascist monster to become president of United States, which will result, among other othings in the implementation of every right wing policy, including anti- lgbtq legislation being passed into law.

They take no responsibility; they are secure in their moral righteousness.

Here's the thing, Clinton is a long time politician. She knows how the electoral collage works. So maybe, just maybe, she screwed up by not focusing on those swings states a bit more. In the end you can blame the voters all you want, but its a politician's job to reach out to people and get them to vote for your cause. She failed to do that in Ohio. She failed to do that in Florida. She failed to do that Michigan. And she failed to win Pennsylvania, a state no republican had won since Reagan. Hillary dropped the ball in those states, ones by all right she should have known to focus on.

The Dems do need to learn a lesson from this, that going for the popular vote while the other guy is going for the electoral collage win doesn't work. A politician as experienced and savvy as Hillary Clinton should have known that already. If the only thing they do in response is continue to brow beat moderates and liberals that didn't fall in line for Clinton, and continue to just complain about the voters themselves then we will get four more years of Trump, and a republican controlled senate.

Note: I say this as a liberal that voted for Clinton because I sure as hell didn't want president Trump. I just don't want to see more of Trump because the Dems are playing the victim rather than reorganizing and figuring out what went wrong and how to fix it.

JCornelius · Feb 4, 2017

“Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.”
― Stalin

Lyv · Feb 4, 2017

rugcat said:
And some of them are still blaming Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. Because the Democrats aren't perfect, and because they had a particular animus toward Hillary Clinton, they allowed a fascist monster to become president of United States, which will result, among other othings in the implementation of every right wing policy, including anti- lgbtq legislation being passed into law.

They take no responsibility; they are secure in their moral righteousness.

This.

Those who say they voted for Trump or didn't vote or wrote in Mickey Mouse because of how Bernie was treated don't ever seem to acknowledge that Bernie himself asked them to vote for Hillary so that all that we're seeing wouldn't happen. Much of what he worked for his whole life is now being destroyed and he likely won't accomplish much if anything more of his stated goals. Every day, his job is harder and probably pretty damn heartbreaking and he has to read and hear supporters brag about causing that in his name.

As for how supporters treated each other...so what? I can't believe the bile I got from some Sanders supporters. Since before I could vote, I've worked consistently for progressive causes, but I failed their purity test and never did anything for anyone and was a hack because I supported Hillary and not Bernie. But none of that had any effect on my vote. They could have spit on me and I would have voted for Bernie (and I has serious misgivings about the man himself). Because it's my vote. My vote! If I let myself be affected by hurt feelings, I'd personally feel ashamed and be trying to atone.

JCornelius · Feb 4, 2017

Extracts from a very well writen analysis by Nick Cohen

Trump’s lies are not the problem. It’s the millions who swallow them who really matter

Nick Cohen
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/05/donald-trump-lies-belief-totalitarianism
The 21st-century’s model for a strongman is a leader who makes opposition as hard as possible, as Orbán is trying to do in Hungary, but does not actually declare a dictatorship, for not even Putin has done that.
/.../
Hannah Arendt described leaders who knew their followers would “believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism”. She was describing Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin. But her words apply as well to today’s Trump supporters, who gulp down incredible falsehoods and then dismiss the “crooked media” when the stories collapse. We are not reliving the 20th century, for how could we? Rather, ideas from the past have melted and reformed into a postmodern fascistic style; a fascism with a wink in its eye and a bad-boy smirk on its face.
Conventional politicians and commentators are stranded because they were wholly unprepared for the new breed of leader who lies as a matter of policy as well as a matter of course. They are flailing around, and inventing phrases like “fake news” and “post-truth politics” to capture a state of affairs they think is entirely novel. Instead of saying that we are seeing something new, it is better to accept that something old and malignant has returned like foul water bubbling up from a drain.
/.../

Comparisons with 20th-century totalitarianism are not wholly exaggerated. With Trump, the lies are a dictatorial assertion of his will to power. “I am in control,” he says, in effect, as he conjures imaginary crowds at his inauguration or invents millions of illegal voters so he can pretend he won the popular vote. “You may know I am lying. But if you contradict me, I will make you pay.”
No one in the west has seen Trump’s kind of triumph in politics since the age of the dictators. But look around your workplace and perhaps you won’t be so surprised by their victories. If you are unlucky, you will see an authoritarian standing over you. The radical economist Chris Dillow once wrote that, while the fall of communism discredited the centrally planned economy, the centrally planned corporation, with the autocratic leader who tolerated no dissent, not only survived 1989, but blossomed.
Dillow is not alone in worrying about the harm the little Hitlers of the corporation might bring. Since the crash, economists have looked as a matter of urgency at how hierarchies encourage petty tyrants to brag their way to the top. They exhibit all the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder: a desire to dominate, overconfidence, a sense of entitlement, an inability to listen to others or allow others to speak and a passion for glory.
/.../
Trump, Bannon, Farage and the Tory right want to polarise societies. They can look to the example of Bashar al-Assad and see a path to victory. The dictator won by shooting down the peaceful demonstrators of the Arab Spring and targeting moderate forces in the civil war that followed. By the time he was finished, there was no middle ground left. Assad could turn to the brutalised survivors and say: “See, it’s either me or Islamic State now. That’s your only choice. What’s it going to be?”
Understand the logic of polarisation and you will understand that Trump wants a violent reaction. He wants to be able to tell white Americans that his opponents are “professional anarchists”, as he said last week. He wants liberals to treat all his supporters as if they are as debased as he is. He can then turn to his base and say liberals hate them because they are white; that they see them as nothing more than stupid, deplorable bigots. Force me from power, he will conclude, and these hate-filled enemies will come for you and give the “tremendous advantages” he was pretending blacks enjoyed in the 1980s to their favoured minorities.

Roxxsmom · Feb 4, 2017

Lyv said:
As for how supporters treated each other...so what? I can't believe the bile I got from some Sanders supporters. Since before I could vote, I've worked consistently for progressive causes, but I failed their purity test and never did anything for anyone and was a hack because I supported Hillary and not Bernie. But none of that had any effect on my vote. They could have spit on me and I would have voted for Bernie (and I has serious misgivings about the man himself). Because it's my vote. My vote! If I let myself be affected by hurt feelings, I'd personally feel ashamed and be trying to atone.

Most Sanders supporters did vote for Clinton, of course. Sanders and Clinton were in accord on about 90% of the issues. A small number of Sanders voters, however, had one issue that they cared most about--stopping the TPP. They really didn't feel that strongly about things like LGBT rights, or feminism, or civil rights, or the makeup of SCOTUS, or abortion rights, or climate change, or the environment or the other things Trump is going to totally screw us all on now.

We can't blame them, or any one other factor, for Trump's victory, though (I do think that nth hour "reopening" of the e-mail investigation did a lot of damage, though). It was a confluence of things that almost no one anticipated. Even Trump seemed surprised by his victory.

Lyv · Feb 5, 2017

Not blaming anyone. Someone in this thread said their vote was influenced by how mean Hillary supporters and unfair the DNC was, so I riffed on that. I still hear it quite a bit and simply address it when I see it. I leave the blaming to others.

ElaineA · Feb 5, 2017

I agree the vast bulk of the EC loss lies at the doorstep of the DNC and Clinton. And the DNC STILL has not picked a new chair, The 2018 elections are more important than ever, the voters are fomenting and ready, and STILL they want to stay within in their "Old Boy" Network for their next chair. Not that the DNC has been run solely by men, but that they only want longtime party line-toers in leadership. They are the epitome of stuck in a rut.

Shadow Dragon said:
The Dems do need to learn a lesson from this, that going for the popular vote while the other guy is going for the electoral collage win doesn't work. A politician as experienced and savvy as Hillary Clinton should have known that already. If the only thing they do in response is continue to brow beat moderates and liberals that didn't fall in line for Clinton, and continue to just complain about the voters themselves then we will get four more years of Trump, and a republican controlled senate.

You had me until that last bit. Unless you haven't been watching, it's pretty obvious the response has been anything BUT standing around pointing the finger at each other. The level of activism in this country is extraordinary. From what I can see, there's some lamenting going on online (understandable, and it's going both ways. I see a LOT of Bernie acolytes out there saying we wouldn't be in this mess if the D's hadn't "stolen" the primary), but not active refusal to work together, nor public finger-pointing on, say, Sunday morning interview shows. At the Women's March in Seattle every flavor of liberals were on display, and the uprising of the populace is coming from all over the liberal-accepting spectrum, from independents to the active socialists. Liberals ARE working together, not just "continuing to complain about voters."

DancingMaenid · Feb 5, 2017

One problem in the US is partisanship. There are people who either 1) simply vote along party lines by default without giving it much thought or 2) vote for the candidate from their party as a calculated measure to maintain party control of the government overall.

Trump was always going to get a sizable percentage of the vote simply because of voters who always vote Republican no matter what.

But people need to own their choices. I don't think that voting along party lines is always bad, but it's not an excuse for ignorance or voting immorally.

Underdawg47 · Feb 6, 2017

Alessandra Kelley said:
Your initial premise is incorrect.

Hillary Clinton was popular even in the face of a brutal decades-long smear campaign. She garnered the second highest vote count in US history, after Barack Obama. She won the popular vote. People love her.

I do not think your assessment of the problem is an accurate one.

The reason Hillary Clinton lost to Trump is the Electoral College and roughly 80,000 voters in three swing states.

And I do not think your proposed solutions are helpful.

Continuing to attack Ms. Clinton seems to me a poor strategy for dealing with the current administration. Draining funding from the Democratic Party is also unlikely to improve things.

I think it is naive to think that Hillary was so loved yet it was such a close race between her and the most hated candidate in modern times. When people would rather vote for someone like Mickey Mouse than to choose between Trump or Hillary. People abandoned the democratic party and voted for Trump in states previously held by Democrats.

I don't ever remember seeing Democrats very concerned with the electoral college before the election. This seems to be a lame excuse when the electoral college has been in place since the very founding of our nation. I think this is just sour grapes.

Poor strategy or not, if the Democratic party continues to take corporate money and ignore the working class, they will continue to lose. People are taking to the streets protesting Trump, but how come they are not shaming those Democrats in congress right now who are confirming Trump's cabinet? How come they are not shaming those Democrats in office right now who voted against a bill that would allow US citizens to buy prescription drugs from Canada? You don't think that taking large sums of money from pharmaceutical companies didn't influence their vote? This is one of the main reasons Hillary was so unpopular. Debbie W Schultz was fired from the DNC for unethical behavior, Russia didn't cause her to do that, yet people want to blame the Russians which seems stupid to me. It was what was in those emails that made people angry and the DNC never denied the validity of the contents of those emails. Bribery should be a crime, yet too many Democrats are brainwashed to believe that is just standard procedure and say that those who oppose Hillary are just "Purity" seekers. Damn right I am, I think that bribery should be a high crime because it effects the lives of all citizens. I think that being a crook should disqualify you as a candidate. I will not vote for a crook now or in future elections whether they be Republican or Democrat. I am not the only one who feels this way. Bernie Sanders one of the true progressive voices left in the Democratic party and yet the Democrats are adamant with keeping the same old establishment Democrats in power thinking this is a winning strategy. They are going extinct.

Bernie Sanders proved that you don't need to take corporate money to be competitive. When you are supported by money taken from the people, you owe your allegiance to them, unlike those who take money from corporations. If the Democratic party continues on this path, I can see Trump winning again in 2020 because Democrats would have learned nothing.

Helix · Feb 6, 2017

Not a US citizen, but I'll give this a go.

Underdawg47 said:
I think it is naive to think that Hillary was so loved yet it was such a close race between her and the most hated candidate in modern times. When people would rather vote for someone like Mickey Mouse than to choose between Trump or Hillary. People abandoned the democratic party and voted for Trump in states previously held by Democrats.

And yet millions more people voted for Clinton than for Trump.

Underdawg47 said:
I don't ever remember seeing Democrats very concerned with the electoral college before the election. This seems to be a lame excuse when the electoral college has been in place since the very founding of our nation. I think this is just sour grapes.

Or concern at the drastic mismatch between the popular vote and that of the electoral college.

Underdawg47 said:
Poor strategy or not, if the Democratic party continues to take corporate money and ignore the working class, they will continue to lose. People are taking to the streets protesting Trump, but how come they are not shaming those Democrats in congress right now who are confirming Trump's cabinet? How come they are not shaming those Democrats in office right now who voted against a bill that would allow US citizens to buy prescription drugs from Canada? You don't think that taking large sums of money from pharmaceutical companies didn't influence their vote? This is one of the main reasons Hillary was so unpopular. Debbie W Schultz was fired from the DNC for unethical behavior, Russia didn't cause her to do that, yet people want to blame the Russians which seems stupid to me. It was what was in those emails that made people angry and the DNC never denied the validity of the contents of those emails. Bribery should be a crime, yet too many Democrats are brainwashed to believe that is just standard procedure and say that those who oppose Hillary are just "Purity" seekers. Damn right I am, I think that bribery should be a high crime because it effects the lives of all citizens. I think that being a crook should disqualify you as a candidate. I will not vote for a crook now or in future elections whether they be Republican or Democrat. I am not the only one who feels this way. Bernie Sanders one of the true progressive voices left in the Democratic party and yet the Democrats are adamant with keeping the same old establishment Democrats in power thinking this is a winning strategy. They are going extinct.

I might be wrong but right now -- as demonstrated in multiple threads on this 'ere very forum -- people are contacting their local members to express their views on any sort of leeway for Trump.

Underdawg47 said:
Bernie Sanders proved that you don't need to take corporate money to be competitive. When you are supported by money taken from the people, you owe your allegiance to them, unlike those who take money from corporations. If the Democratic party continues on this path, I can see Trump winning again in 2020 because Democrats would have learned nothing.

Trump's not going to win in 2020.

buz · Feb 6, 2017

Underdawg47 said:
I think it is naive to think that Hillary was so loved yet it was such a close race between her and the most hated candidate in modern times.

Quite honestly I'm still stuck on "it should have been enough that she wasn't him." Because, by all objective account, it should have been.

And I think that this was a marvelous example of how distortion of information can work. How people could be made to think that "emails & Benghazi" was a reasonable counter to the incredible list of wrongs and possible wrongs that her opponent embodied. How fear can work, how scapegoating can work; even now, I see disturbing amounts of support for this Muslim ban thing, this obsession with safety and how irrational solutions for it are rationalized.

This is bigger than her faults or mistakes. Which, I'm not arguing weren't present...It's just...there's so much more to it than that.

I don't ever remember seeing Democrats very concerned with the electoral college before the election. This seems to be a lame excuse when the electoral college has been in place since the very founding of our nation.

I think they were also concerned with it the last time it caused a significant disparity in popular vote winner vs electoral college winner. I'm not sure about the level of concern then vs now, though. The disparity was not as huge.

The sour grapes thing kind of minimizes the overwhelming fear that many of us wake up with on a daily basis now. It's not about sore losing. It's about the fact that the person who won seems to be directly endangering everything good about this country. Science, justice, animal rights, voting rights, civil rights, access to health care, attempts at opposing global warming, means of curtailing police brutality, effective and safe medications and air quality and water quality, our tenuous peace in the world, our safety, our ethics standards, our constitutional standards, our independence from puppetry by despotic powers, basic concepts of right to due process, and more, all under threat. For what? Because some votes count more than others based on geography?

"Sour grapes" really doesn't encapsulate it, for me.

No, maybe I wasn't concerned with the electoral college before. But this kind of brings it into sharp focus for me.

Poor strategy or not, if the Democratic party continues to take corporate money and ignore the working class, they will continue to lose.

The Republicans take corporate money. When there's only two choices, I don't see how that's a deciding factor.

What part of the working class did the Democrats ignore?

People are taking to the streets protesting Trump, but how come they are not shaming those Democrats in congress right now who are confirming Trump's cabinet?

They are.

This is one of the main reasons Hillary was so unpopular. Debbie W Schultz was fired from the DNC for unethical behavior, Russia didn't cause her to do that, yet people want to blame the Russians which seems stupid to me. It was what was in those emails that made people angry and the DNC never denied the validity of the contents of those emails.

People "blame the Russians" because they chose to reveal only DNC information and not RNC. The facts are the same, but their visibility is different. Which then purposely influences people into believing that the Democrats are crooked but not the Republicans, or that the Democrats are at least worse in their "crookedness," because the evidence for the other side remained unreleased. It's not an invention of truth, and it doesn't exonerate Democrats, but it is a manipulation of what people see, and it matters. Possibly enough to swing an election, but I'm unsure.

I'm honestly not saying that the Democrats are innocent. I'm only saying that singling them out over the opposition for corruption distorts how people see reality in dangerous ways.

"It doesn't matter which party wins because both are corrupt" doesn't work for me when one of the parties seems to be trying to actively attack every structure, law, and ideology that keeps our well-being in place and the other isn't.

I will not vote for a crook now or in future elections whether they be Republican or Democrat.

That's up to you. But if people continue to do the oversimplifying "every sin is the same" thing for every candidate, and their vote reflects that, then harm comes to the rest of us.

I'm not saying you shouldn't speak out against potential corruption. Neither am I saying the Democratic Party is squeaky clean, or doesn't need change. But the "both sides are guilty of crookedness and therefore they are the same" thing is a really damaging distortion of the truth.

Bernie Sanders proved that you don't need to take corporate money to be competitive. When you are supported by money taken from the people, you owe your allegiance to them, unlike those who take money from corporations. If the Democratic party continues on this path, I can see Trump winning again in 2020 because Democrats would have learned nothing.

Trump might win in 2020, but if it's because "Democrats are taking corporate money" vs "Republicans are taking corporate money and also actively destroying every good thing about this country" and people still didn't vote for the only party in existence that has a chance of standing against Republicans, I think there are really much bigger problems than the Democrats' sponsorship.

Again -- I don't know to what degree mistakes in political maneuvering decided the election's outcome. But I think this was bigger than either candidate on their own, or either party's violations of ethical standards. This is about distortions of reality, and how so many people really want to change narratives by ignoring truth, rather than using truth to construct narratives -- and the means by which those voices were lifted over the plurality.

Michael Wolfe · Feb 6, 2017

Helix said:
And yet millions more people voted for Clinton than for Trump.

Absolutely true, but I think this is still missing some context. Clinton and Trump were both historically unpopular. So arguing that Clinton was popular by way of comparing her to Trump is problematic, insofar as we're comparing her to the only candidate who could have beaten her out in being disliked.

And while it's true as well that she got the second most overall votes in history (after Obama), that too, I think, is only telling part of the story. You also have to keep in mind that the population of the country was smaller in previous elections, and if you go back far enough, it was way smaller. If Trump (or a supporter) tried to argue that he was more popular than, say, George Washington, because he got more overall votes, I think a reasonable person would say that's a bit silly. Politifact would almost certainly rate such a claim false, I would imagine. But the same goes for Clinton or any other contemporary candidate. So I think measuring how beloved a politician is by overall votes is always going to be somewhat misleading.

And Trump being so unpopular also complicates things, as well. There's no question that Clinton got votes from people who really liked her, but she probably also got votes from people who didn't really like her but disliked Trump even more. Can one point to those voters as proof that Clinton is beloved? I'd probably say no. Overall, Underdawg's premise that we had an unpopular candidate running against another unpopular candidate seems pretty reasonable, IMO.

Prozyan · Feb 6, 2017

Helix said:
Trump's not going to win in 2020.

Yeah, never heard anything like that before.....

Assumption is a horrible position to take. Who are the dems even going to run? Unless they have a surprise candidate appear in the next year or so it looks like Sanders might be the best they have.

In short, I would not make such strong assumptions.

Helix · Feb 6, 2017

Prozyan said:
Yeah, never heard anything like that before.....

Assumption is a horrible position to take. Who are the dems even going to run? Unless they have a surprise candidate appear in the next year or so it looks like Sanders might be the best they have.

In short, I would not make such strong assumptions.

I'm happy to call it right now. Despite filing as a candidate, Trump's not even going to run in 2020.

Alessandra Kelley · Feb 6, 2017

Helix said:
I'm happy to call it right now. Despite filing as a candidate, Trump's not even going to run in 2020.

The POTUS is, by law, servant to the public.

POTUS has always been an unglamorous, thankless, time-intensive, difficult job that calls for intense dedication, detail-oriented thinking, close attention to matters of law and policy, and a willingness to brush aside slights and insults in order to get the job done.

Every living ex-President, whatever else one may think of them, has managed those aspects of the job.

This one may not.

Twick · Feb 6, 2017

Have you seen photos from the Mar-a-Lago ball? Trump looked ready to bite the whole time. I think he's hating this with the hatred of a thousand searing suns.

My big fear though is that in four years he will have wrecked things irrevocably.

buz · Feb 6, 2017

Alessandra Kelley said:
The POTUS is, by law, servant to the public.

POTUS has always been an unglamorous, thankless, time-intensive, difficult job that calls for intense dedication, detail-oriented thinking, close attention to matters of law and policy, and a willingness to brush aside slights and insults in order to get the job done.

Every living ex-President, whatever else one may think of them, has managed those aspects of the job.

This one may not.

But then, if the law ceases to be relevant where he is concerned, as it seems he's aiming for . . .

I don't know. Dictators have a tendency to stay in power.

It sort of depends on what he destroys and how much.

Roxxsmom · Feb 6, 2017

I think it's pretty clear that Trump wants to be King of the US. However, Trump is not young, and in spite of his doctor's assurances, he doesn't seem to be in especially good shape physically, even for someone who is 70. He's now got what has to be the most stressful job on the planet, and if his wee-hour twitter rants are anything to go off, he's not sleeping well. We know he becomes practically "apoplectic" when crossed or criticized. I'm sure his systolic BP spikes into the danger zone whenever this happens. He's a cardiovascular accident (or aneurysm, or coronary infarction) waiting to happen.

He does have access to the best health care in the country, of course (if he is willing to accept it), but I give his survival (or remaining physically healthy enough for the job) to 2020 even odds at best.

This doesn't mean that his successor (Pence) won't do a lot of harm in his own right, or couldn't get re-elected and be able to serve two more terms (I think that can happen if someone becomes POTUS as vice president, depending on when the original POTUS died). It also doesn't mean that some kind of coup is impossible, where Bannon (or maybe one of his sons or other heirs apparent) attempt to fill his shoes.

I doubt all those angry bigots will go quietly to the bottom of the ocean if their figurehead cracks and falls off the ship.

It's also possible, of course, that Trump will be one of those weird old guys who lives to 90 because of fantastic genes, in spite of being heavy, and eating lots of taco bowls, and handling stress poorly. His parents both lived to be quite old (his dad had Alzheimer's though), though I doubt they lived the same kind of life he has.

Underdawg47 · Feb 6, 2017

buzhidao said:
Quite honestly I'm still stuck on "it should have been enough that she wasn't him." Because, by all objective account, it should have been.

And I think that this was a marvelous example of how distortion of information can work. How people could be made to think that "emails & Benghazi" was a reasonable counter to the incredible list of wrongs and possible wrongs that her opponent embodied. How fear can work, how scapegoating can work; even now, I see disturbing amounts of support for this Muslim ban thing, this obsession with safety and how irrational solutions for it are rationalized.

This is bigger than her faults or mistakes. Which, I'm not arguing weren't present...It's just...there's so much more to it than that.]

This is the fatal flaw of the DNC. They along with the media propped up Trump early on in the election, gave him lots of free air time. The DNC limited the number of debates until Bernie pushed for more. Hillary didn't want lots of debates. She was hoping to coast by on name recognition alone and deprive Bernie's campaign by limiting air time. The media intentionally gave Trump and other Republican softball questions on every single Republican debate. Not until the release of Wikileaks were our suspicions proven true. The DNC wanted Hillary to run against the worst candidate betting that she would easily win. They just underestimated how much Hillary was hated compared to Trump. The Democrats basically gave us Trump.

buz · Feb 6, 2017

The Democrats basically gave us Trump.

The Democrats rigged the entire process and manipulated the media such that Trump would win not only the Republican primaries and the party nomination but also the presidency itself? No other factors were involved? Is that your contention?

I mean, I know it's not, but that's where your focus is; I'm just trying to widen the focus a bit. Because I'm just kind of--I understand your disagreement with how the DNC handled things, but I'm still in a place of "why wouldn't people have voted in a shoebox filled with burnt hair in order to avoid voting in that man," you know what I mean? Why did it even matter if it was Clinton or Sanders? How did reality get so distorted that the man became a viable candidate and then president? I don't really buy the argument that the DNC's handling of their campaign and their manipulation of the media caused this distortion in full. I think it's a lot broader and deeper and more complicated than that--would you agree?

For me, the answer is much more in the voters than anything the DNC did--or else, the corruptions and crookednesses of Republicans would have mattered equally, wouldn't it?

Is it time for Trump's supporters to really "own" him?

Sophipygian

Lost in the Fog

Sophipygian

Lost in the Fog

Twitching

I meant to do that.

Beastly Fido

I meant to do that.

All about that action, boss.

New kid...seven years ago!

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Jambo Bwana

Are you one, Herbert?

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Sophipygian

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Beastly Fido

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